The past couple of days I’ve been putting together a new assembly bench. My new fangled work bench, although a great bench, is going to my ‘soon to be’ son in law. It’s a super bench for those who use a lot of hand tools. I don’t that much but do a lot of assembly. This bench will fulfill that purpose. It will be 50×52” when finished. It’s the exact height minus 1/8” of my table saw so it will also be an outfeed table. When I make the new mobile miter saw stand I’ll make it the same height too so the outfeed table can assist that also.

It’s on those HF locking casters I blogged about previously. I must say, this bench is hefty but I can grab the corner of it and roll it back and forth with fair ease. The casters also lock well and the brake come off with a slight upflip of my toe.

The top is not on yet but it will be mdf with a removable 1/8” tempered hardboard top. There will be 1” thick spruce edging around the whole thing. The top is also reinforced at the corners with the thickness of three plywood squares. I figure the corners might see the most use and be more prone to stress. It also solved the problem of how to brace it within the sandwich. I don’t think it will be an issue now. Lots of glue and screws help. The top will be about 4” thick. I need good clamping strength and area. The overhang is 6” on three sides and 12” on one side to accommodate the table saw motor which hangs out the back when I use this as an outfeed table.

The framing is all ripped from spruce 2×10’s and the skin is poplar plywood. The top is/will be MDF and tempered hardboard. Again, this stuff is expensive enough. I shopped for what was on sale. If it had been sanded pine plywood then it would be made out of that. I like shop tools well made and functional but I’ll be damned if I’m going to make them out of mahogany. I’ll save that for the stuff that goes in the house. I’ve also been using up lots of scraps of particle board and plywood from other projects. A good way to get this stuff out of the way and get some room in here.

I made two cabinets in one side with slide out trays that I picked up at a salavage store for a song. I’ll build some shelving to mount to each one later. The back side has a large cubby that I plan on putting my little craftsman compressor in. I have a 60 gallon one piped in from down stairs in the garage but most of the time I need a fraction of that air. Starting up the big one is overkill for the pin nailer. The larger compressor I do need for spraying and rotary tools though.

Tomorrow I should get the top on and edging finished. I’ll leave it after that and work on getting the other tools mobile. Remember the whole point of this, after 5 yrs of working in this shop, is to remake it to be more suitable for what I do. Till next time….

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-- The smell of wood, coffee in the cup, the wife let's me do my thing, the lake is peaceful.

3 comments so far

Looks great and I think you’ll get more than 5 years of use out of it. I’m going more towards hand tools but a large assembly table still appeals to me. Glad your “soon to be” son-in-law likes woodworking, that’s nice.